Level IV US Observation #1 Reflection

My objective and the essential question I wanted them to be able to answer at the end was, “Why are civil rights important?” The lesson started off with a brain pop about the Civil Rights Movement. From this video, students learned about the different aspects of the movement and the people who were involved in it. At five minutes and thirty seconds, one of my students said she learned about a girl who had to walk two hours to her school which was for Blacks, when there was a school right down the block for Whites. This girl’s name was Linda Brown. Right before that moment, another students said she learned that due to segregation, Blacks and Whites had to use separate facilities.

For their formative assessment, they read more about the Civil Rights Movement and people who were important to it. They had to fill out a chart after they text coded the reading. They were to text code the reading with a C for contribution whenever it talked about someone important to the movement and what they did. Before, I partnered them up to do this, I made sure to model for them what they were doing and had a student repeat the directions so they were sure of what to do. As they text coded and completed their charts, I walked around to provide support and to see who was and was not understanding. When looking at their summative assessment, I could see that the students really understood the lesson and why civil rights are important. The students provided me with amazing answers and about six of them provided connections and insight.

My instruction most definitely promoted the teaching of social studies as a content-rich discipline that strengthens listening and reading. When the students were watching the Brain Pop they were using their listening skills to learn about the Civil Rights Movement. After it was over and I asked them what they learned, I could really tell which students were paying attention to the video and had good listening skills because of their answers. Another skill they strengthened was reading and this was through the formative assessment. Students really had to use their reading skills to get through the text, text code, and fill out their charts. Some students in the class are stronger readers than others and they were partnered up so the high readers could help the low readers.

I integrated technology into my lesson by using the Brain Pop video to introduce the Civil Rights movement. I believe this was a great way to engage them and introduce the topic. As the video played, I observed the students and the majority of them engaged with it the entire time. The video connected perfectly with my lesson and with the formative assessment. It talked about many of the same people in the video and the reading which gave them repeated exposure to the information about them. For example, two people who were in both the video and the reading were Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

I learned many things from engaging in this lesson. One thing I learned was that it is great to use technology to enhance lessons. My students really like Brain Pops and as I mentioned before, it was a great way to introduce them to the topic. My students have had much practice with text coding so they were great with it, but they did run out of time to finish their chart. I learned that one things I can do to keep track of time is have a timer. Also, I could have broken the lesson into two days instead of one and planned for extra time to complete the chart. If I would have done this and had extra time for other things, a great idea would have been to present them with a primary source from the Civil Rights Movement. I would have done this after the Brain Pop video and I think it would have been a great way to capture their attention.

One of my goals based off of this lesson is to start asking higher-order thinking questions. After the video, I asked them what they learned but I failed to ask deeper questions. Another goal I have for my next lesson is to use a primary source that will capture their attention. Though I think my classroom management was okay, I know it could have been better. So, one of my goals for my next lesson is to have better classroom management. For instance, after nine minutes and fifty seconds, I asked the students to stand up so I could pair them up. They were supposed to stand up quietly but there was lots of talking going when they stood up. I did not address this though and thinking back on it, I should have.

Visual on board.

Model for students.

Student work.